In simplest terms, an Information Oversight (which we shall abbreviate IO) occurs when an enterprise (that's any information publisher -- it may be a business, government, some other type of organization, or an individual person) fails to produce -- or produces unclear -- information that its audience needs.
The audience or receiver is a person or group who must use (or want) the information provided by an enterprise.
IO's most frequently arise when the enterprise fails to produce the needed information. Let me present some of my favorite recent examples. Please pay special note to the reaction of the people in this situation, and what your reaction would be if you were in the situation. (Your reaction may or may not be typical, and in fact there may be no single "typical" reaction.)
Pool Closed
Recently at a fitness center the doors to the swimming pool were locked. There were quite a few people milling around waiting to get into the pool. They were angry because the pool was closed, and because of the uncertainty of knowing when the pool would re-open.
Had the pool manager merely posted a handwritten sign saying something like:
Pool Closed for Water Testing
Will Re-Open at 8:15PM
The waiting bathers could plan to wait in more comfortable surroundings, decide to wait outside the door, or choose not to swim at all.
The information conveyed by the sign would have resolved the bathers' uncertainty and made them happier. (Not happy, but happier.) In fact one person remarked that he felt sorry for the fitness center because they had gotten so many people so angry.
The pool manager, in not providing information needed by his audience, committed an Information Oversight.
The Bank Statement
The bank where I have my business account sends me a monthly statement. This month, the statement showed a Debit Memo (money removed from my account) for the tune of about $1,600, taken by the taxation branch of the government. This clearly must be an error, as I do not remember authorizing any such deduction.
Question: What is the first thing that you would do, after searching your documents and memory to verify that you had not given permission for this access?
I bet it would be to call the bank. That was my first reaction. The bank statement, printed by the computer, indicated the name of my branch.
BUT, they left out one small piece of information: the phone number of the branch. I needed that for the next step…to contact them. I was forced to look the number up in a telephone directory, or search my records or Palm Pilot. (There was no e-mail address or website address either.)
This is an example of a tiny Information Oversight. Having printed the phone number along with the branch name would have saved me some work, in a stressful (why did they take that money?) situation. This IO made me less happy with the bank than I could have been.
Please don't take the bank's side on this. If you feel that they purposely do not print the number in order to reduce unnecessary calls, then you are thinking like the organization, and not like a customer. The customer wants the bank's services to be easy, and by leaving out the number, the bank made its services harder to access.
Leaving the phone number off the bank statement is an Information Oversight.
By the way, someone had made an error; the bank removed the debit.
Information Oversights are not usually major things. Just lots of little things which, like the so-called Chinese water torture, makes life less than joyful.
An Internal Document Yields a Different Kind of Information Oversight
An e-mail was sent to all those managing websites. This mail announced that there is to be a change to the web development infrastructure. In simple terms it means that some name changes which refer to your web pages will change on such a date….
The e-mail contained a small list of Frequently Asked Questions. Here is a goody:
4. Question: Will I need to change any of my content?
Answer: Prior to migration, the content will be scanned for any references to (the current address) as well as any URLs containing ~ (tildes). This will be changed to (new name) and any tildes will be removed.
I replaced the actual names in the above response. Before we continue this discussion, please note that the question was stated as "Will I need…"
The response came in the unclear passive voice. (That's why your teachers never liked the passive voice.) It is not apparent who will edit your web content.
This is an example of an Information Oversight of a second kind. (The first kind arose when information was not made available.) In this second type of IO, the author muddied the answer. The statement was not 100% clear, and yet it could have been. For no more cost! Here are two possible changes:
"Prior to migration, we at the corporate migration center will scan the content for any references to…"
But that is still not clear enough. The "user" asked the question "Will I need to change…". The answer to prevent any IO should have been:
"No, you will not have to change anything. Prior to migration, we at the corporate migration center will scan the content for any references to…"
Oh wait, there is more in this internal memo. Let's discuss it further.
The last item in the list of questions asks whom to contact if I have problems. The answer gives two names, but no telephone numbers. I get the feeling that they have the same writers as my bank.
Wait there's more. The word ASSUME (everyone should hiss and boo) rears its ugly head. The document ASSUMES that all will go well. It ASSUMEs that you will test the site, rather than recommending a next step:
Next Step:
- You should test all aspects of your site after the changeover (date).
- If you have problems, contact…
"Oho," you say, "don't pick on a little techie whose favorite language is only understood by a few select individuals and perhaps a computer.
And From a Professional...
So, here is one from a professional writer. The Ottawa Citizen "Going Out" section (L) December 16, 2000, and a nice one.
There is a subsection called "Sunday best The top things to see and do." It's about events happening on Sunday, but presented in Saturday's paper. The following sentence appeared in a description of a Magic Show:
"The family show with four magic acts is today at 2, 5, and 8 p.m., and tomorrow, at noon, 3 and 6 p.m."
This appeared in the Sunday subsection in the Saturday edition of the "Going Out" section of the paper.
QUICK, with no assumptions what days were the shows? Saturday and Sunday, or Sunday and Monday? Yes, your assumptions will fill in the blanks. And if your assumption is wrong, you can lose big.
Here is a simple rewrite of the IO sentence.
"The family show with four magic acts is Saturday at 2, 5, and 8 p.m., and Sunday, at noon, 3 and 6 p.m."
The argument that this wording does not look as good as the previous one, is unreasonable. Informative writing should first be clear, then it can be made to look good. But not polished at the expense of clarity.
Back to Our Discussion
Ah, a bit of writing can spawn a career.
Actually a lot of the meat to feed this career came about with the need to purchase a new VCR. From the merchant's and the manufacturer's websites, to product manuals, to the ergonomics of the machine itself, the experience contains a lifetime of Information Oversights. And a beautiful product loses some of its sparkle in the process.
Notice that I make an assumption here. I am not going to concern us with the idea of providing incorrect information. I shall assume that your enterprise will produce information with the validity it should have (I choose to be ambiguous here).
However, one thing is possible. Although we cannot know what skeletons in an enterprise's closet do not see the light of day, we do know that many folks are concerned with uncovering the truth as it affects them. There is a chance that the skeleton might be illuminated sometime in the future. So watch it!
There are other kinds of information mistakes that we could put under the Information Oversight umbrella. Here are a few:
- Timing. Providing information at the wrong time.
- Overload. Providing too much information, not optimized for access (which includes navigation). I wonder how much the time spent on a website is reduced if a flashing banner is placed on the page. The information overload (distraction) of the banner overshadows the content.
- Audience. This, in fact is one of my favorites. Of course it got me, that's how I know about it. The "audience error" lies in not finding out or knowing who your audience is. This error is manifest in most, if not every, government web site.
Know Your Audience
I can think of (at least) two types of people (let's call them "roles" that a person takes on) who visit a government website:
- People who need or want to find out something about the government. My example here is the student writing a school paper on the history of the Patent Office.
- People who have to do something with the government or want a service from the government. My example is the person who wants to patent her newest invention.
When either of these roles approach the government website, and search on "patent" they get the same mass of links. Try it and see. The person who wants to patent her invention is forced to weed through all this stuff to find the "how to" stuff.
Aha! We have accepted a further assumption, which makes our government site even a bit more difficult to use. We assumed that the "how to" person knew the word was "patent." Even though the search produced gobs of useless information, we made an assumption that she knew where she should look. Silly us.
What the "how to" person probably wants to do is to protect her creation. She is an inventor, or writer, or whatever. She is not a patent or trademark lawyer. Thus she knows what she wants to do with her creation (protect it) but doesn't know the jargon.
Please don't say, "the inventor should get a lawyer." For if that is the attitude we take, then we needn't spend the money on the government websites. Their mandates are to inform and serve (without stepping on anyone's toes.)
While it is easy to slam the governments, we can all be satisfied in knowing that almost all Internet sellers' and product manufacturers' websites have the same failings. They don't seem to recognize the dual roles of the customer. I will discuss this further in a section on the Users of your Information.
Interestingly enough, many governments have websites with "employee portals." This is a web address which would be known to and used by employees. It provides quick access to information which employees need about their jobs with the government.
Now It's Your Turn
Take a minute or two (if you haven't already done so) to think of any kind of Information Oversight that was inflicted on you.
- Recall what happened.
- What piece of information was withheld?
- How did you feel about the situation?
- Did your feelings towards the "sender" of the (missing) information change?
- And finally, would there have been any problem for the "sender" to have eliminated the Information Oversight?
Your feelings in the situation (or any range of feelings that you can imagine for that situation) are the feelings that people experience when they hit an Information Oversight of yours.
More than Errors!
But there is more to it than what I have been presenting. The underlying concept is that enterprises should always be trying to give the "Gift of Information." One of the gifts of information is clearing up Information Oversights. Other gifts go beyond the repair of blunders. These add product value, greater user skills and knowledge, smoother operations within your organization, and reduced stress.
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